Heart surgery to restart in Yorkshire

Claire Lewis
News Reporter

CHILDREN’S heart surgery is set to resume at Leeds General Infirmary after days of uncertainty over its future, hospital bosses have revealed.

The decision to ‘work together’ to reopen the unit early next week was reached at a summit between Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, NHS England and other partners late last night.

A spokesman for the NHS Trust said the agencies will act over the weekend to ‘provide sufficient assurance’ that the unit is safe to reopen.

He said: “Following a productive multi-agency meeting to review the decision to suspend children’s cardiac surgery at Leeds General Infirmary, agreement was reached to work together to restart surgery on the site early next week subject to independent assurance of concerns raised.”

All operations at the unit were halted last Thursday after NHS figures suggested the unit had a death rate double that of other centres.

But medical bodies, doctors and other experts have questioned the accuracy of the data, which they say was unverified and not fit to base such a decision on.

Maggie Boyle, chief executive of the NHS Trust, said: “I am extremely confident that this service is safe and effective and should recommence at the earliest opportunity. I want partner organisations to be as confident in the service as I am.”

“We will play our full part in supporting the safe reopening of the service at the earliest opportunity.”

Parents had criticised the timing of the unit’s suspension, which came just 24 hours after a High Court judge ruled that a decision-making process to close it as part of an England-wide reorganisation of services was ‘legally flawed’.

Parents have reacted to the news with joy.

Jon Arnold, whose daughter Zoe underwent life-saving heart surgery at the unit in 2007 when she was three weeks old, said the news was a relief.

“There’s been massive support from the parents and families for the unit, and this decision confirms what we thought about the quality of care all along,” he said.

“My daughter had fantastic care at the unit.

“It was difficult to understand as a parent how they could have shut the ward so swiftly on the basis of unverified data. It left parents feeling very confused about what to believe and what was best for their child.

“Once the unit is reopened then a lot of the families will have a lot of questions that need to be answered about the manner in which it closed.

“The main thing is that babies and families that need urgent treatment can now get it on the unit without having to be shipped across the country to any available bed space.”